


Any Other Lifetime

by confettiinmyhair



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Kiss, M/M, angsty AND tender, but like....... a bunch of different first kisses, every single possible first kiss??, someone give this angel one (1) good movie kiss and it'll be alright
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-05-18 23:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19344853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confettiinmyhair/pseuds/confettiinmyhair
Summary: It would have been averted in a thousand other ways, in other lifetimes that didn't matter as much, at so many other moments in time.





	1. Eden

In lifetimes other than this one, other than the one that would truly matter, it did go so very differently.

***

He would go down and repair the wall soon. He would have to. It had to be at least that much, at least some kind of effort to show willing.

But for now Aziraphale was watching rain pelt down on the desert sands, letting the enormity of this grand transgression steep over him in waves. 

“I’ve never even seen it,” he murmured.

“Hm?”

Crawley had not moved from under his outstretched wing, and Aziraphale could feel the cautious, appraising gaze on his skin.

Dark gray eyes finally met gold, and the tired look would have been a question in its own right.

“Show me.”

*

It was a stooped and crooked thing, this tree. Its boughs hung low, nearly dragging against the damp grass.

The fruit was rough-skinned, not even half so beautiful as any thousand others to be found in the garden. Was that, perhaps, the appeal - its relative ugliness?

It pulled free in his hand so easily, like the best and ripest prize… but so simply. 

Aziraphale brought it to his nose for a long, deep sniff.  
Earthy, and bitter, and something like captured sunlight.

The demon’s voice came closer than he’d been ready for - a breath away, and still without touching, barely a whisper.

“I fell, for what that gives you.”

“I should have fallen, for what I did today. And here we are,” Aziraphale whispered back.

The skin gave under his teeth, and the taste was everything the smell had promised: a bright grain, a sweet-bitter taste, and - 

\- and nothing was different. 

The world did not shift.

There was nothing but the patter of the soft rain on the leaves, the roll of distant thunder.

He turned, carefully, offering up the rest of the quince.

Crawley gave it an uneasy glance, gave _him_ an uneasy glance. 

And then his hand was wrapped, so carefully, around Aziraphale’s wrist as he leaned in for the bite, gaze never shifting.

And when the moment passed, when the fruit was forgotten in the dirt and they were drinking the taste of its juice from each other’s mouths, greedy and fervent... 

...oh, the sin could never be in the action, only in the question. And perhaps not even then. 

***


	2. Gethsemane

But there were other lifetimes.

***

The city was rife with unrest, this month and a half since Joshua’s horrible death.

The night air was dry and warm - unusual, here in the desert, which usually turned so cold so quickly.

Aziraphale found himself returning with greater and greater frequency to this garden, to this place where he had tried to comfort the boy.  
Where he had ultimately done nothing of substance. The boy had still died, in agony. 

And so here he sat, under the olive branches, watching the obscured stars move across the sky.

“Punishing yourself won’t undo it.”

The voice was clear and easy as it had been for the last dozen and a half centuries.

It would have been impossible not to notice the demon at the edges of Everything for the past thirty years, even if he'd never shown his face at Golgotha.

Possible to try and ignore, perhaps. Possible to act as though he knew nothing, as though he’d never given Crawley shelter on that wall. As though that act of kindness hadn’t been a kind of sin all on its own. 

_Crow_ ley, rather.

Wrapped in black even here in the thick of the night, like the most elegant of ravens, sitting carefully on a wide old root, a mere hand-span away.

He watched sidelong as the demon drew the hooded veil down off of his hair - that impossible flow of hair, peppered through with thin, long braids - as his eyes never left the night sky.

“They sent me to help, to give him hope, and to show him what the choice meant… and still it came to all of this? Cruelty for cruelty’s sake, dressed as an act of love? Toward Her own son?”

“Careful, Angel. Ask too many questions, and you might burn right alongside him.”

That cut Aziraphale to the quick, sparked something that felt nearly like anger - something that turned directly over into a crushing helplessness.

All he could think to do then was to reach out, to bridge those few inches between them.  
That hair was as soft, maybe softer, than Aziraphale had ever dared imagine. The way that those braids slipped against his fingers - it felt like a dream, like something happening to somebody else. 

Crowley said nothing, merely turned his glance downward, watching Aziraphale’s face. 

“It's time to - we should leave,” the angel whispered. “ _We_ should leave. I don't think can't bear it anymore.”

And then Crowley’s lips were warm against his cheekbone, long fingers of his left hand cool and gentle on Aziraphale’s jaw.

“They’ll rip you apart for it,” was the whispered answer against his ear, delicate as a spring bloom.

“If it was an act of salvation, I'd think that should be good enough for us all. Don't you?”

He would swear he could feel something like the remnant edges of Crowley’s grace in the next kiss, their mouths opening slowly against each other’s, his hands twisting into Crowley's hair. 

It felt like a benediction, like lazy-falling rain in a forest... like the promise that if he should be damned, he'd had this much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no spellchecking no beta reading, we write for catharsis and catharsis only and die like men


	3. Horti Sallustiani

It began as so many other nights had and would: a dinner invitation, catching up on the last half-decade over too many courses of food, grinning openly and carelessly at each other’s terrible jokes over more and more wine.

It became yet another jug of wine, passed between them, as they meandered up and down the hills of the central city.

And now the night was bright with the high fullness of the moon, the air thick with the scent of all of the meticulously-cultivated flowering shrubs - oleander, unless he was mistaken - and they’d walked and walked and ended up here: in this park, where Aziraphale was watching the flex and bend of his own bare feet under the shallow, rippling flow of water in a fountain. Where had his sandals…? - oh, it didn’t matter.

He looked over his shoulder, watching as Crowley took another long gulp from the jug.

Aziraphale must have been wildly, recklessly drunk enough to even allow himself to think that even though he hated Crowley’s haircut, it still suited him. That everything did, somehow. 

“Something on your mind, Angel?”

Perhaps he _had_ been staring, after all.  
Perhaps there was something in the wine-heaviness of the demon’s voice, now…

“Maybe it is funny, after all. How I’ve never really done the right thing.”

There was a questioning crease in Crowley’s forehead. Aziraphale took a deep breath, extracted himself carefully from the little pool, took a swaying pause at the feeling of the grass underfoot.

And he might have said: “Never asking the right questions, not until it’s been too late. Because nothing - it never changes, you know. The Fall, and the Garden, and the Flood, and every… every great smiting… and Joshua, and… yes, of course they all die. Eventually. But what purpose could any of it _serve_? Life just rolls on, business as usual. No grand revelation. No higher purpose.”

In a different life, perhaps he would. Perhaps he'd finally give his doubts a true voice. 

But here they were, in the summer moonlight, quiet and happy, and Aziraphale didn't think he could stand the idea of shattering that.  
Of wasting one more perfect moment. 

And so it was five, six, seven steps, and all he could do was to take a grasping handful of Crowley's tunic, drawing him in close. 

“Is this the right thing?”

He was watching the slow drop of Crowley's throat, watching the momentary panic melt from his face to be replaced by one of those slow grins.

“Oh, I certainly hope so.”

The skin at the corner of Crowley's mouth tasted like the sweet-tartness of the wine, and Aziraphale was now determined to spend the rest of the night (week, year, decade, century) chasing down every last trace of it.

If this was all the wrong thing, it would at least be a good thing. If not a holy thing, at least a happy thing.

The only grand revelation that he was destined for, it seemed, would be that he didn't so much mind it when he heard the soft thud of the jug dropping to the grass, felt the drink splash cold up against his leg and the hem of his clothes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: "might fuck around and wrote about Aziraphale going wading in a fountain with a bunch of oleander bushes in the background because I do like some good symbolism"
> 
> anyway feedback makes my world go 'round


	4. Uuenrisc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word of caution: it might not ping for everyone, but this chapter technically deals with a kind of body dysmorphia.  
> I'd rather nobody walks into that unknowingly.

“We’re not having this conversation. Not another word.”

“Right.”

“Right!”

As he all but stomped away and drew his cloak closer against the chill, Aziraphale heard the step of leather boots pause behind him, heard the swivelling scrape in the dirt. 

“Wait. No, hey, wait!”

“Oh, what now?” he shouted back, turning slightly on his own heel. 

Crowley gestured in a wide, aimless shrug.

“I - you know, just. Well, you came all this way, and I’ve got three barrels of this meadowsweet ale, and just... it’s going to be a long way back to Caer Lleon, isn’t it?”

For a long pause, Aziraphale cast about as though the trees themselves might hold an answer, if he could look anywhere except -  
There was something about the set to the demon’s jaw, something about the quirk of an eyebrow... 

“That... does sound nice, actually.”

*

The little brazier was a welcome warmth, after these many drudging days on the road, and the last small barrel finally gave up its last trickling portion of the ale. 

Perhaps not Aziraphale’s favorite drink, but there was something to the sweet-herbal tang of it that sang gently on his tongue. This much, at least, was worthwhile. 

They had long since spread their cloaks over the ground to sit on - Crowley had unfastened the tough leather of his cuirass and set it aside sometime after. 

As he finished a long swallow, Aziraphale attempted to follow suit, the fastenings giving him somewhat more trouble than usual.

“- and they go mad for it, but I'm sure you know. A few singed trees, a few missing sheep, and they're practically at each other’s throats for blood and for the songs to be sung of their own valor. Easy-peasy,” Crowley intoned, all of it slurring together ever so gently, swishing the ale in his own cup. He reached over then, to help with a buckle. “They just keep inventing more and more layers, don’t they?”

“Oh - thank you,” Aziraphale murmured, too focused on the movement of Crowley’s fingers. The strap finally slipped free of the clasp, and that hand paused just a moment too long, didn’t withdraw quite as immediately as it should have.

But then it was past, and Aziraphale pulled the whole thing away in one slow, careful motion, as though he was not to be trusted with his own limbs.

“So,” Crowley said, leaning forward to rest his arms against his knees, “ _Knighted_? Knighted, by a pagan king. I’m dying to hear this one.”

Aziraphale wiggled his shoulders by way of a reply as he swallowed another deep mouthful.

“I _was_ asked just to keep an eye out, and… well, then they were having some awful trouble restructuring the tax flow in one of the leaner seasons, a few years ago, and people were going to end up starving if I didn’t... and _maybe_ I also happened to have some old maps at hand that will help with finding an old treasure. You know. Some old goblet that he thought might help with some Old Roman holdouts and some of the less amiable priests. And he’s got a good heart, for all the right reasons. Ended up getting swept up in it all.”

He watched as he spoke, watched Crowley pick absently at the neckline of his plain undertunic, lost in a thought, eyes fixed to the fire.

“You needn’t stand on modesty for my sake, you know,” Aziraphale offered, gently.

That pulled Crowley back to the moment, blinking slowly. 

“Hm? Oh. No, I think I was just trying to picture - you, you know. Going off adventuring, when you already know where it is.”

There was a flex of his shoulders, then, something impossibly old and tired.  
Something that was achingly familiar, so longstanding that Aziraphale hardly even acknowledged it in himself anymore.

“It's been a long time since I've been back that way. And anyhow, there’s no lesson in it for them, if I never let them handle the hard parts. I’ve done that too often already.”

It was unthinking, the way he let his hand drift up, across Crowley’s back. The demon’s whole body stilled, impossibly tense. For the most fleeting moment, Aziraphale was sure that this was some kind of an unforgivable line that he’d finally crossed.  
But Crowley melted back against the touch like a slow, sinuous wave, hummed some kind of relief low in his throat.

“Might do you good, though. Food here’s terrible. Doesn’t taste like anything,” Crowley finally managed, head tipped back, eyes closed, as though suspended against that point of contact - against Aziraphale’s open palm and outspread fingers. “I don’t even like it, and I miss it. The way the spices smelled on the air. The saffron fields…”

It took a very long time for Aziraphale to bring himself to answer. It was too much, this focus on the feeling of the linen under his hand, the heaviness that came with it. The strange, minute shift of bone and skin and sinew below the heavy linen.

How strange - how strange that they had known each other for so many centuries, and this was the first time that Aziraphale could remember ever having touched him.  
How strange that he now could not imagine wanting to ever _stop_.

“You could go any time you wanted.”

“Yeah. Suppose I could. Take you with me when I go, too,” was the oh-so-quiet answer.

He might almost have said, _I’m going anyway. Come along with_ me _, darling._.  
And wouldn’t that have been something? Crowley with him, in the thick of it at court? Dressed in all manner of high finery, dispersing his little temptations and corruptions right in the thick of things, right where it would have the most impact? Where they could play the old game right out against each other? What a thrilling risk it could-  
Aziraphale was almost shocked at himself for the thought. For all of it.

Instead... 

“In the meantime, you'd really ought to take this off, you know. Relax them. It's just us, and you'd be so much more comf-”

He'd been pulling his hand away, finally, moving to try and help Crowley with the shirt -

“Don't.”

It was a snarl as the demon twisted away, twisted around, and the strike he'd anticipated earlier finally came. Crowley's grip was tight on his wrist, fingers digging in painfully, some thrilling hint of claw that itself subsided almost immediately - and Crowley let go of him just as suddenly.  
He did not move from the crouch he'd fallen into, was facing Aziraphale now, those slitted eyes all too fierce still. 

“Don't,” he repeated, the rough edge still plain in his voice. “I know. I _know_. But I hate it, sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

The expression eased somewhat. 

“Taking them out just to put them away. It’s only a reminder of… everything.”

It made a kind of sense. Too much sense, perhaps.  
Old and familiar, indeed - that sometimes not remembering was easier. 

Aziraphale wished, suddenly, that he could see - well, _everything_. That they could just see each other, see everything under these wonderful, awkward bodies they inhabited.

He wished there was something to say, something to banish all of it.

This, then. This was every sad longing of which every bard had been singing since songs were sung. Aziraphale had never realized that he'd understood them - not like this.

“I’m sorry.”

Crowley nodded, and glanced around, eyes settling on his knocked-aside cup. Aziraphale offered his own, and after a pause Crowley accepted, sitting back again to drink.

“I should go -”

“No. Or - not unless you want to.”

He didn’t. He wanted to _be_ anywhere else, maybe - somewhere warm, somewhere with a dry heat and sunshine unbearable on his skin, somewhere where the taste of the taste of wonderful food would linger in his mouth for hours... anywhere but a tent in a damp forest in Pritani - but he did not want to go.

Not yet.

He reached out, caught Crowley’s free hand in both of his, drew it up for one plain, simple kiss to the knuckles, thumbs smoothing over the skin in his wake.

“No. Not if you don’t,” he breathed.

"Not yet," Crowley finally whispered back. 

And they were alone, together, at last, cups put aside. Their limbs slowly sorted themselves into an easy tangle as they drew in against each other, and wasn't it just as simple, just as easy, when they were sighing into each other's mouth, again and again, wanting it all the more each time?

Heaven, hell, and everything else to follow could come as it would.

This was awful, and this was perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's read so far, and who have commented here or on tumblr or on my twitter. It always means the world.
> 
> This one took a strangely long time, because I was obsessing over three very plain facts:
> 
> (1) if we're working on show logic, then the armor they were wearing in 537 was almost a full thousand years off-base. they wouldn't have been clanking around in flashy platemail during a period where at heaviest they might be decked out in some lighter chainmail with leather armors (which at most might have been studded or had various other reinforcement. the full body of metal, with the hinged helmets? no. no, absolutely not. even if it looked VERY COOL and provided maximum humor in context.)
> 
> anyway I got lost in a bunch of articles and scholarly argument about what armor DID look like, and I get distracted a bit when that kind of thing happens.
> 
> (2) desperately tried sticking to the garden theme with the titles but I don't even know what I would begin to google for "publicly maintained gardens in the kingdom of Wessex right after the Romans bounced", so uh... rivers and future monastery/abbey sites it was! not to mention trying to puzzle out what would and would not have counted as any given border of Wessex in 537 (there's not a lot of solid documentation readily available, but the Western Saxons wouldn't have even been as far west as bath by then, as best as I can tell. I would even have liked St. Leonard's forest, to make a better joke about the dragon sightings, but that is/was Sussex, which would not be a part of Wessex for another 300 years............... so choices got made.).
> 
> (3) also I was moving and I had no time to spend on this.  
> (3a) also those dysmorphic-nb trans feels, you know how it goes. I played myself etc
> 
> As to my decisions on how to refer to place-names: I'm a dweeb and I cherry-picked between Old English and various Celtic dialects. As to my decisions between those dialects... well, Aziraphale was show-canonically palling around with a specific king, and that king (real or not) would very much have been Welsh.  
> (I may have been very much obsessed with all of this when I was about 12.)
> 
> (edit 7/12/19: I think I’m finally done tinkering at this chapter. I think I’m finally happy with it.)


End file.
